New allegations against Elif Eralp: Red Aid is more important than ever

T he efforts by bourgeois-conservative to right-wing forces to prevent a state government in Berlin led by the Left Party are almost ridiculous, they seem so transparent and desperate. The latest “scandal”: The left-wing top candidate Elif Eralp was a member of the Red Aid. Severe shock, a left-wing lawyer is a member of a left-wing legal organization, where can you find something like that?

As a member of Rote Hilfe, I say: That sounds likeable. Ultimately, in times of a general shift to the right, it is more important than ever to stand up for left-wing activists who are suffering from political persecution, police violence and right-wing terror. Antifascism is currently under massive pressure, but solidarity is the most important weapon against it. Especially since legal assistance for accused people is natural and desirable in a democracy, even when it comes to leftists who are accused of crimes. Lobbying for one's own cause is also completely normal in civil society, even if the cause is called anti-fascism.

So why the excitement? Because the Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies Rote Hilfe as “left-wing extremist”. Now this assessment of an authority that has been through the ranks of Nazis like no other since National Socialism, whose task is to trivialize right-wing terror and criminalize anti-fascism, is hardly surprising. For leftists, assessments of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which should have been abolished long ago, are worthless. Even if, hypocritically, they are still referred to positively whenever there is a question of a ban on the AfD.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

Even if the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution sees it differently: being left-wing or radical left-wing, advocating for a different, better, solidarity-based society is not per se unconstitutional. It is not stipulated in the Basic Law that we have to live forever in a capitalist, inhumane society. Even if some would like you to believe that.

Red Aid is not banned, membership should therefore not be an exclusion criterion for government office, as is currently rumored. So it's a shame that Eralp left the club a year ago in pre-emptive obedience and is justifying their membership instead of continuing to support the club.

In contrast to the CDU politician Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who was a member of the NSDAP, Eralp has nothing to be ashamed of - and Kiesinger even became Chancellor. On the contrary: the commitment against the right, to which the lawyers of the Rote Hilfe and its predecessor organization have been committed since the Nazi era, is something that many politicians would also like to see. Then the electoral success of right-wing extremist parties would certainly be limited. They are a far greater threat to democracy than anti-fascist lawyers.